ABSTRACT
With recent advances at X-ray microcomputed tomography (µCT) synchrotron beam lines, it is now possible to study pore-scale flow in porous rock under dynamic flow conditions. The collection of four-dimensional data allows for the direct 3-D visualization of fluid-fluid displacement in porous rock as a function of time. However, even state-of-the-art fast-µCT scans require between one and a few seconds to complete and the much faster fluid movement occurring during that time interval is manifested as imaging artifacts in the reconstructed 3-D volume. We present an approach to analyze the 2-D radiograph data collected during fast-µCT to study the pore-scale displacement dynamics on the time scale of 40 ms which is near the intrinsic time scale of individual Haines jumps. We present a methodology to identify the time intervals at which pore-scale displacement events in the observed field of view occur and hence, how reconstruction intervals can be chosen to avoid fluid-movement-induced reconstruction artifacts. We further quantify the size, order, frequency, and location of fluid-fluid displacement at the millisecond time scale. We observe that after a displacement event, the pore-scale fluid distribution relaxes to (quasi-) equilibrium in cascades of pore-scale fluid rearrangements with an average relaxation time for the whole cascade between 0.5 and 2.0 s. These findings help to identify the flow regimes and intrinsic time and length scales relevant to fractional flow. While the focus of the work is in the context of multiphase flow, the approach could be applied to many different µCT applications where morphological changes occur at a time scale less than that required for collecting a µCT scan.
ABSTRACT
Newly developed high-speed, synchrotron-based X-ray computed microtomography enabled us to directly image pore-scale displacement events in porous rock in real time. Common approaches to modeling macroscopic fluid behavior are phenomenological, have many shortcomings, and lack consistent links to elementary pore-scale displacement processes, such as Haines jumps and snap-off. Unlike the common singular pore jump paradigm based on observations of restricted artificial capillaries, we found that Haines jumps typically cascade through 10-20 geometrically defined pores per event, accounting for 64% of the energy dissipation. Real-time imaging provided a more detailed fundamental understanding of the elementary processes in porous media, such as hysteresis, snap-off, and nonwetting phase entrapment, and it opens the way for a rigorous process for upscaling based on thermodynamic models.
ABSTRACT
We present a novel approach for directly measuring the permeability of reservoir rocks by an instrument lowered in a well bore. The measurement is made by creating an oscillatory motion of fluids in the pores by acoustic stimulation and by detecting the amplitude response as a phase shift on a nuclear magnetic resonance relaxation signal. A full theoretical description is given. The feasibility of the method has been verified in the laboratory on a set of sandstone and carbonate samples spanning the entire range of practical interest.
